Empty Ghazal

Two bright ceramic pots beneath the window: purple for starbursts
that haven’t seeded, orange for lavender. In other words, they’re empty.

Waiting at the doctor’s, a feathered strip glimpsed beneath
the awning. Blue wing, black bars, then the space emptied.

Geckos call on the fringes of the factory where young migrant workers
cobble computer tablet parts together. The suicide nets tonight are empty.

There are days I want to move boxes out of cold storage, not
knowing what’s inside: take them to the curb; purge, empty.

Cleaning my drawers, I find a small stack of unused journals.
The leather-covered one you gave me, my favorite, is still empty.

I dream of choosing a rich Japanese ink to fill my pens, with names
like Dew on Pine Tree (Syo-Ro) or Old Man Winter (Fuyu-syogun).

How much a flourish on cream stock gathers: scroll of morning glory,
blush of persimmon. Wildness of horses’ manes, the horizon empty.

Loosely held, the brush gathers the line as it goes. Uncertain at
first, it stumbles on the trail, then speeds: moving away from empty.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.